Rick's Super E3 Roundup!

Rick's Super E3 Roundup!

You may not be aware of this, but right now there's a little shindig going on in Los Angeles named E3. Here, every year, a small number of developers gather to show off exactly three computer games. The whole event lasts about five minutes and then everyone goes home feeling refreshed and happy and not at all like they've forgotten what sleep is.

I've been watching events unfold from afar with only mild jealousy, and have compiled the highlights of each conference into this handy electronic word scroll. Thank goodness there are only three games to cover, or...

...what's that?...

...HOW many?

Ah.

We're going to need a bigger server.

--

Bethesda

This year's conferences kicked off with Bethesda, and while its show had little in the way of surprises, it was nevertheless a pretty exciting start to E3. The conference began with the first proper look at id's new Doom, which has eschewed the plodding horror of Doom 3 in favour of speedy action and enough gore to fill an Olympic swimming pool. Interestingly, during the ten minutes of gameplay that were shown, not a single word of dialogue was uttered, which further hints at id's commitment at returning to the feel of the original.

Bethesda's presentation also gave us a glimpse of Dishonored II, a game that I'm particularly looking forward to. We were only shown a trailer, but it revealed that Dishonored II a direct continuation from the story of the first game, and will let us play either as Empress Emily Kaldwin or the protagonist from the first Dishonored, Corvo.

Of course, the main attraction from Bethesda was Fallout 4. After the slightly underwhelming trailer released just before the show, Bethesda's gameplay demonstration was a lot more promising. A fully-voiced main character and a permanent canine companion accompany the usual vast open-world and kitsch post-apocalyspe theme. But after the Witcher 3 so recently stole the RPG crown, can Bethesda step up its writing game? In particular, it would be nice to see a central storyline that was actually, y'know, worth playing. Also, look at all that colour! Hurrah!

Microsoft

Microsoft has had a difficult couple of years. I'm speaking relatively; it is a multi-billion dollar corporation, after all. But this year it came out swinging, and by the end of its presentation the Xbox One seemed like a much more viable prospect than it has in the time since its release.

Curiously, its biggest announcement had nothing to do with new games at all. The Xbox One will now support backwards compatibility for Xbox 360 games. It was later clarified that only certain approved games will be supported, and currently that list is somewhat thin, but I expect it will be expanded considerably in the coming years.

Having suitably warmed up the crowd, Microsoft began running through a fairly typical Xbox roster. Halo 5, Gears of War 4, Forza 6, Rise of the Tomb Raider each made an appearance. All of this looks perfectly playable, but there isn't a whole lot that's new even within the context of each series. More tantalising was Recore, the new game from Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune. Recore is about a young woman and her robot dog exploring a post-apocalyptic wast - hang on, I think I accidentally pasted the blurb from Fallout 4 in here. Nope! It's definitely Recore.

Facetiousness aside, only a CG trailer was shown, but from the looks of it the game will involve controlling different kinds of robots using a single AI system. Hence re-core. Not a bad idea to build a game around.